Happy Halloween

Last year I posted my Halloween pictures On November 28th. I'm a bit more on top of it this year.
At first the May Queen had wanted to be a chihuahua. I could not figure out how to make a chihuahua costume that wouldn't look like a cat, and for once Google failed me (although I found all sorts of costumes FOR chihuahuas!). I managed to talk her into a pink poodle. She got TONS of compliments on it, which made me beam. I have to confess, she was adorable!
Jack O Lantern designing takes concentration. Sticking your tongue out helps.
We carved our pumpkins a few days ago. I managed to lose the carving tool I bought last year (I just saw it when I unpacked the decorations! I'm sure it's around here somewhere...) so we worked together with a real knife.
Here we are with our finished projects, taken just before trick or treating this evening.

I got this great idea from Crafts by Amanda which I found through The Crafty Crow. (If you like to do crafty things with your kids you must add The Crafty Crow to your reader!). They were so simple and fun to make... we set them at the end of our driveway with candles in them.

Gratuitous kitten shot.

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Don't forget Monday's Mission: to write a post in the style of a vocabulary list.

Conquering the monster: Theatre Thursday

My life has been taken over by the festival. When I auditioned for the second show, I thought it would be like the first one. Shorter. Less rehearsals. Less time commitment.

But, no. The show is only about an hour long. But it's a musical, with all new original music. And lots of harmony. And some choreography. And I'm onstage pretty much the whole time. Oh, and there's zombies.

It's a full rehearsal schedule. PLUS the other show's rehearsals. And I've been sick. So I'm a little stressed. OK, quite a bit stressed. But I can make it through the 15th. I know I can. I can. I will. I must.

[deep breath]

I attended my first fringe festival in Philadelphia back in... oh, I dunno, 97? 98? Fringe festivals are great fun: you can see a bunch of theatre in one day, and there's samplings of all sorts of things... tragedy and comedy and absurdism and dance and monologues and street theatre and puppetry and ... it's a ball. Some of it's terrible and some of it's great, and a lot of it leaves you thinking. I saw one of the most amazing things ever at a Fringe fest. It was a play called Monster, and it was a one man show put on by a Canadian company. I sat in the theatre, a place I had been in countless times before, a building I had WORKED in, and clung to my best friend for dear life. I'm an actor. I understand plays, stories, fantasies. But never in my life have I been so convinced that someone might kill me at any second. I was cursing my propensity to sit in the front row. In two steps this man could be at my throat. He was telling the story, through several points of view, of a small town where people were disappearing. And it turns out they were being sawed to pieces in a man's basement. There was no set. No props. Just one brilliant actor, a gripping story, and a fabulous lighting scheme. At the end of the show he revealed the horrible "monster," the shadow on the floor behind him slowly disappearing. It was the most brilliant and creepy thing I have ever experienced. The show ended and my friend and I looked at each other. We agreed. The next show needed to be a comedy.

a girl, her kitten, and a rainbow

does it get any sweeter than that?

Absolut Fierce - the story

When my husband and I married he had 5 cats. Well, technically, BEFORE we got married he had 5 cats. Once we were married WE had 5 cats.

They were great cats, each with their own personalities.

Zachary was a fat, black cat. As long as he had enough food he was happy. If you entered the room he was in he would start purring in anticipation of being petted. If a warm breeze came by he would purr. He slept with all the other kitties (other cats deferred to the strict feline hierarchy in our home) and assumed everyone wanted to pet him. He would be ambling through the house and decide to lie down. Rather than lowering his frame to the ground he would just fall over onto his side (and usually start purring... you were planning on petting him, right?) Zach was the happiest cat I've ever known.

In 1997 we saw a movie called Fierce Creatures. The movie features John Cleese, Kevin Kline and Jamie Lee Curtis (yes, that fabulous trio from A Fish Called Wanda) and is about the staff of a zoo struggling to deal with the changing policies of the zoo directors. One of the things that the zoo directors do is accept corporate sponsorships, and there's a funny bit showing animals with Absolut signs, including a tiger with an "Absolut Fierce" banner.

So it was that I gifted my husband with this framed photo of Zachary.
It was nearly impossible to get a picture. He actually didn't mind having the sign tied to him, but when I would back up to snap the shot he would walk towards me, wanting to be petted. Purring, of course. Fierce.


(Last week I titled a post Absolut Fierce and asked what movie it was from. No one got it. Now you know.)

After the beep: Monday Mission

Hey. This is Painted Maypole. I can't answer the phone right now because I'm at rehearsal for Fringe Show #1. And if I'm not there I'm rehearsing for Fringe Show #2. Yes, that's right, two shows, opening within 2 days of each other. I'm insane. So maybe I'm not answering because I've had a nervous breakdown. Or I could be sleeping, but that's highly unlikely. Regardless, I can't get to the phone. As you've already figured out. Please leave a message. I'd like to say I'll get back to you soon, but in reality I'll get back to you when I can... which will likely be AFTER the fringe festival ends on Nov. 15th. But give me a few days to sleep. Let's say... if you haven't heard from me by Nov. 18th then call me again and leave another message. Because I may lose this one in meantime, along with my mind.

Have a great day, and thanks for calling.

This post has been a Monday Mission. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to write a post in the style of an outgoing voicemail message. If you play along please leave a message after the beep... I mean... please leave a link in the widget below.



And that concludes our October Missions. Join us in November when our missions will be to write posts in the style of

Nov 2 a vocabulary list

Nov 9 a menu

Nov 16 a Villanelle (this is a type of poetry, another suggested by De, and since we had such fun with her last poetry suggestions I thought we'd try it again! One famous example of a villanelle is Dylan Thomas' poem Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night)

Nov 23 an Acrostic (you know, those poems they made you write in grade school where you wrote a word down the page, and then each line started with the letter... You could do a THANKSGIVING one, just like you did back in third grade this time of year, or you could come up with your own word)

Nov 30 A letter of regret

Sugar high

I saw a commercial today that I was SURE was one of those ironic, fake ones. The woman was SO overly sincere that I kept waiting for the punchline. Plus, it was so ridiculous. She was urgently complaining about how difficult it will be to feed her family if the government puts an extra tax on SODA and FRUIT JUICE. But the punchline was... that there WAS no punchline. Apparently the government wants to put a tax on "sugar sweetened" drinks.

You know... a tax on, as this Diet Cherry Coke junkie calls it, "a can full of chemicals" and "cup o' corn syrup."

How will we EVER feed our families? Golly, we might actually have to resort to drinking... *GASP* ... water!!!!

They want to use the money to help run new health care programs.

It's outrageous! Taxing sugar sweetened drinks that contribute to our national obesity problem is like taxing cigarettes because they cause cancer!

Oh wait...

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* maybe diet sodas will escape the tax, since they aren't ACTUALLY sweetened with sugar. Hmm.....

Righting myself

If I didn't do theatre...

-My scrapbook would be up to date
-I would have a much smaller stack of books to read
-My house would be spotless
-My garden would be beautiful, fruitful, and weed free
-My files would be organized
-My child and husband would never feel neglected
-I would exercise every day
-I would write witty and/or thoughtful blog posts every day
-Every meal would be homemade
-I'd be making all my Christmas gifts, rather than buying craft supplies and then allowing them to collect dust
-I would be relaxed and never get testy with those I love
-I would return phone calls and e-mails in a timely manner

Mommy guilt is a common phenomenon. Thespian Mommy guilt is just a variation on the theme. I know the above list isn't true. I would not have it all together if I didn't do theatre. Although I might have some of it MORE together. But there would be so much that I would be missing, too, and that hole... that hole would get in the way of the other things nearly as much.

I feel sometimes like I'm walking a tightrope. If I lean too much towards one side it throws the balance all out of whack. Maybe that's what my shingles... a health problem that affects only one side of the body... were trying to tell me. I was leaning a bit too far to the theatrical side. I'm working on righting myself. But I can't do that too quickly either... jerk back to one side, overcorrect, and I could fall right off.

Just keep moving forward, one step at a time.

What would you be getting done if you weren't doing something else?